U.S. Traces Financial Roots Of Terror Network to Brooklyn

By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Published: February 12, 2004

A prominent Yemeni sheik came to Brooklyn in 1999, raised money at mosques that was ostensibly for charity and then went to Italy, where he met with a top operative of Al Qaeda, according to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.

The sheik, Abdullah Satar, then made a speech in Italy calling upon people to join the jihad and denounced the United States for pursuing a terrorism suspect ''to curry favor with the Jewish population and to project hatred upon Muslims,'' according to testimony of an F.B.I. agent at a trial of a New Jersey man in Federal District Court in Brooklyn that began on Tuesday. Prosecutors say the man, Numan Maflahi, was an associate of Sheik Satar's.

The trial, on a charge of making false statements to federal agents, is peeling back the secrecy surrounding a wide-ranging investigation of what prosecutors have described as a network with shadowy roots in Brooklyn that raises and transfers money for terrorists.

The sheik who raised the money was identified as a member of Yemen's parliament. There are no known charges against him.

Testimony in the case showed that investigators believed Sheik Satar may have operated much the way prosecutors said another Yemeni cleric did in Brooklyn.

The other cleric, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, was arrested in Germany last year and is being held in Brooklyn awaiting trial on federal charges that he funneled millions of dollars to Al Qaeda.

The charges against Sheik Moayad made international news when they were announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft last year. But until the trial now under way in Brooklyn, there had been no public mention by prosecutors of the alleged involvement of a second prominent Yemeni in Brooklyn fund-raising.

The prosecutors say Mr. Maflahi, originally from Yemen, made false statements to the F.B.I. in 2003 when he was asked about a fund-raising trip by Sheik Satar.

The allegations in Mr. Maflahi's case and details that emerged from the testimony showed that federal investigators have found connections they had not revealed publicly among the handful of cases arising from their terrorism-financing investigation.

Yesterday and on Tuesday, an F.B.I. antiterrorism agent described Sheik Satar's visit to Brooklyn.

The agent, Brian Murphy, said the sheik was under surveillance by federal agents as he made a series of visits to Brooklyn mosques with Mr. Maflahi.

The connection between the sheik's fund-raising and terrorism financing in New York was merely implied. But the agent described to the jurors the sheik's trip to Italy after he left Brooklyn and met with people identified as terrorists.

Outside of the jury's hearing, the prosecutor, Kelly A. Moore, told the judge, Nina Gershon, that one man the sheik visited after he left the United States was ''the No. 1 operative for Al Qaeda in Italy.''

Mr. Maflahi's lawyer, Hassen Ibn Abdellah of Elizabeth, N.J., has argued that Mr. Maflahi did not make false statements, and he has repeatedly complained to the judge and the jury that the prosecution has tossed around references to terrorism to inflame the jurors.

''They're using a lot of inflammatory words,'' Mr. Abdellah said outside of court. ''But this case is not a terrorism case.''

The deputy chief of Yemen's mission in Washington, Yahya Alshawkani, said in an interview yesterday that he had heard of Sheik Satar but knew little of him and did not know how he could be reached. He said he knew nothing about any prosecution claims that the sheik might have been involved in terrorism financing.

Prosecutors say that in one interview with federal agents last year, Mr. Maflahi provided false information about his role during the 1999 trip, saying that his interaction was limited to seeing the sheik by chance and giving him occasional car rides.

Mr. Murphy said that during the interviews, Mr. Maflahi described the sheik as an eminent Yemeni with ''a reputation comparable to Hillary Clinton or Chuck Schumer,'' the senators from New York. Mr. Murphy also testified that information from Sheik Moayad's telephone book led to people in Brooklyn who had been investigated in the inquiry.